Chapter 20

Even after the time that had elapsed Susie was still seething with anger. It wasn’t like it was a surprise. She’d expected Hugh to behave like a bastard right from the start, and he had. But the confirmation that he was a bigger creep than even she’d imagined fuelled her anger just the same. ‘So let me get this right - Hugh did a deal with lord what’s-his-name, Crispin, and sold me down the river?’ she said indignantly.

‘More or less, I’m afraid, yes.’ The editor was suitably abashed. After all, it was his idea to give Hugh the job in the first place, and Susie had maintained right from the start that he was untrustworthy.

‘And he didn’t just sell me down the river, right? I mean, he made loads of money, had another crack at my sister, and in return he told them I’d be the local bike for a bunch of loonies in black cloaks. Yes?’

‘Welllll...’

‘Well yes, you mean. He told them I’d do whatever he said because it was my job. So they knew from the minute I went there that I’d go along with their stupid pantomime and let anything with a dick shag me senseless.’

‘It was along those lines, I’m afraid, yes.’

‘And he made sure that no one came to help?’

‘Erm, yes,’ confirmed the editor, uncomfortably, ‘something like that must have happened.’

Susie raised an accusing eyebrow, and the dark-suited man beside her as she faced the editor across his desk shuffled his papers in a threatening manner.

‘Well,’ continued the editor, ‘I mean, we know he did some sort of a deal with Crispin, and he definitely warned him about the proposed police activities on Saturday night. And he was definitely promised all the riches and preferment that are the supposed benefits of Satanism. Which, I suppose, included Sophie, your erm, well, if the, ah, enchantment actually worked, that is...’

‘He thought it was going to, though, didn’t he?’

‘Um, yes, no doubt about that, he believed.’ The editor coughed quietly. ‘Having spoken to him at, um, some length on the phone, there’s no doubt in my mind that he thought there was some kind of truth in it all.’

‘So when he joined them, with the knife and blood and everything, he really became a proper Satanist?’

‘Well now, Susie,’ began the editor paternally, and then snapped back into businesslike mode as the suit leaned forward, a shark scenting blood. ‘Well, there’s no such thing, really. It seems to be mostly a load of bunkum, manipulated by certain people and groups mostly so they can have sex with girls who’d otherwise turn their nose up at them.’ He had the good grace to look down at his desktop as he made the point, and Susie tried to blush, but failed.

The solicitor cast a sidelong glance at her and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, placing his paperwork over his lap.

‘But the master, he tricked him?’ demanded Susie.

‘Oh yes. Hugh wasn’t planning on being a sexual participant that night, and certainly not in the way it turned out, at least. No, definitely not.’

‘Glad he was, though,’ Susie said appreciatively, and opened the newspaper at the centre pages so she could enjoy the pictures all over again. There was no doubt that the improvised handbag-cam had been a great success and, thanks to the bright light of the full moon, the pictures were pin sharp and crystal clear despite being captured from video, the moonlight almost as good as a proper flash. The largest of the pictures showed the master in the act of buggering Hugh across the altar, and though his face was contorted, beyond any doubt at the exact moment of ejaculation, there was equally no doubt about his identity. Not just a local MP, but also the leader of his parliamentary party and therefore a candidate for Prime Minister in the next election - which was doubtless the prize he was seeking to obtain through his magic rituals.

And the chauffeur was actually the chief superintendent of the police force in a neighbouring county, and was also clearly recognisable. Several more of the participants proved to be local businessmen and politicians, and a number of the Sisters of Light had also been identified. Most were the wives of the men involved, but one was the mayoress of a nearby town; her husband hadn’t been present and was even now waxing lyrical outrage on every radio and television news bulletin that could find room for him.

From the newspaper’s point of view the story was an entirely satisfactory conclusion to the affair. Everyone who had been positively identified was named in the article, and there had already been radio and television news stories about resignations and marriage break-ups. Circulation had outstripped supply despite an extra run, and part two of the story, due the following week, had already increased orders still further.

From Susie’s point of view things had indeed gone horribly wrong at the end, but her memories of the night were as blurred as her vision had been at the time, so the horror of it all was slightly distanced. Furthermore, she’d once had sex in the course of duty with a man in an alien costume, and the fancy dress creature who laid across her that night in Norfolk had not been much different to the special effects monster in north London. Except perhaps that this one had entered her with his costume dildo rather than the real thing, and she recalled its roughness and vast girth and length with a shudder of mixed dread and delight.

But even better than the triumph of the story, when the editor found out all he’d done he fired Hugh immediately, so some good had come of it all. And then, since he was no longer a member of staff, Susie argued, there was no reason not to use his picture in the feature. Thus justice had finally been done, in the shape of the large image of him on the front page, and the even larger one on the centrespread, in which everybody was clearly recognisable, including Hugh, unmistakeably being buggered in both pictures with every indication of actually enjoying it.

At last Susie had her revenge on Hugh, in full; his starring role on the front page ensuring that he would never trouble her or Sophie ever again.

But she was in the paper too, and though her face was, as always, blurred or cropped, the story yet again had her by-line and it was hard for any intelligent reader to ignore the fact that she had been the central figure on that night and on previous occasions described in lurid detail that week, and the next... and the week after, if the editor could arrange it.

‘Now then,’ she said, with more confidence than she felt, ‘about the terms.’

The solicitor snapped into action, funnelling paperwork from his narrow briefcase, fanning it across the editor’s desk and also laying sheaves of it on top of his case.

‘I have one or two problems with a couple of details,’ the editor began, balancing his reading glasses on his nose, but got no further.

‘Not negotiable,’ snapped the suit, through a shark-like mouth.

‘You don’t know what they are yet,’ began the editor importantly, and once again got no further.

‘Not interested. Not negotiable.’ He waved a handful of bony fingers across the fan of paperwork. ‘None of it’s negotiable. All or nothing.’

‘But - ’

‘No, but nothing.’

The editor glared at him and was glared back at in return, so switched his glare to Susie. Cold fingers of fear iced her spine, and as she crossed her legs she cursed the sudden warmth in her knickers. Always when she was scared, she thought, but then it reminded her why she had to stand firm, not to back down. Because if she didn’t the sudden seepage of wetness prompted by fear, by curiosity or by sheer uncontrollable need, would always get the better of her better nature.

‘Sorry,’ she said as calmly as she could, heart pounding, juices leaking insistently warm into the gusset of her knickers, ‘not negotiable,’ she finished.

‘It’s the film...’

‘Not negotiable,’ snapped the suit, who had now assumed the appearance of a great white, all teeth and anger.

‘Do you mind, could I...?’ the editor persisted, giving the legal man a cold stare. ‘Susie, look, let me speak to your lawyer in private a moment.’

She hesitated only a fraction of a second before agreeing; the solicitor had asked for far more than she would have ever considered, so even if he was bought off or backed down she’d still get a great deal more than she had wanted, so what was there to lose?

‘I’ll wait outside,’ she said, and left the office, padding quietly down the grey-carpeted corridor, heading straight for the door she remembered. She’d gone in there the first day, when she was just a frightened job applicant waiting to see the editor, sat on that very oval of white plastic and felt the same hot wetness creeping from her soft pink lips.

Skirt up, legs parted, Susie held her knickers to one side with one hand and let the fingers of her other stroke and soothe her to a long, slow climax, feeling herself relax as the shuddering pulled at the toned muscles in her shapely thighs.

They were waiting for her when she got back, and her lawyer ushered her silently back inside the editor’s office. He looked somehow different, she thought; red-faced and somewhat flustered, like a boy who’d been caught scrumping, or peeping through the window of a girls’ changing room.

He’d been looking at pictures, she thought with a sudden flash. Pictures of her. He wouldn’t meet her eye, but he couldn’t look away when she crossed her elegant legs, letting the smooth whisper of nylon stimulate his eardrums, and he began to search aimlessly through his paperwork, taking a good ten seconds to regain his concentration.

‘Right, Susie,’ he started, ‘I, um, we’ve agreed - that is to say...’

‘There’s no film,’ snapped the editor, obviously back in control of the meeting. ‘I ordered it to be destroyed after we’d scanned it.’

Susie was gob-smacked by the news. ‘But - ’

‘I beat Special Branch by about thirty seconds. They shouted and stamped their feet but we didn’t have a tape to give them. I told them they could buy the paper to see the only pictures we’d got. Didn’t like it, but what could they do?’ He shrugged happily. ‘So they went away empty-handed.’

‘And the rest?’

‘All agreed,’ said the editor and the suit in unison.

‘Fine.’ Susie nodded her agreement.

‘Bank transfers today, paperwork in a few days.’ The editor smiled a regretful smile. ‘We’re sorry to lose you, of course, but I can understand why. And I’m sure you’ll feel much better after you’ve spent a couple of years in the country, recuperating.’

Susie did her best to smile a regretful smile, but inside she was whooping with joy. Not only was she relatively wealthy now, since the editor had agreed a very generous severance payment in view of her hardship, but for the first time since she’d left college and started work at the paper, she knew exactly where she was going and what she was going to do.

The editor watched her and the suit leave before he picked up the phone and dialled the three-digit number that rang in the proprietor’s penthouse upstairs. ‘All done,’ he said heavily. ‘No, no fuss. I told her it had been destroyed and she believed me. I still think we should burn it.’

He cocked his head away from the phone and listened to ten seconds of angry diatribe followed by a loud click as the other end was slammed down.

‘Ignorant bastard,’ he said to himself, and dropped the phone onto its cradle, turning to look out of the window to where Susie and the solicitor were crossing the car park two floors below. No one at the paper had told her that the final minutes of the videotape showed her lying on the makeshift altar, legs apart, moonlight shining between them, apparently in the throes of a multiple orgasm that seemed to go on and on and on.

Apart from the shadowy figures at each corner of the altar, and the master with his assistant on the far side, watching intently, there was no one else to be seen near her; no man, no woman, and definitely no large goat-like creature like the one she described.

‘It looks as if she’s being...’ the solicitor’s voice had tailed away as he watched the film in the editor’s office after Susie had been asked to leave.

‘Exactly,’ said the editor.

‘But there’s no one else in the picture...’

‘Don’t you mean nothing else?’ the editor asked carefully.

The solicitor’s mouth flapped a bit, but no sound came forth.

‘The official line,’ said the editor ponderously, ‘is that it was all an hallucination brought on by the drink, and that in a trancelike state she actually had a multiple orgasm.’

‘Lasting seven minutes?’

‘Quite so. However, Special Branch informs me that there can be no question that a member of parliament was able to conjure up Lucifer, Prince of Darkness, nor that Susie was ever forced to have sex with him... it... whatever. And anyone who suggests such a thing will be prosecuted within an inch of their life and never work in this town again. Etcetera, etcetera.’

‘Aha...’ the solicitor said slowly, contemplating the meaning of those words.

‘Precisely. And whatever the truth, I don’t believe Susie really wants this tape for herself.’

The solicitor had agreed on Susie’s behalf to accept the editor’s word that the tape had been destroyed, and had also agreed to listen most carefully to a fellow solicitor’s brief in the matter of an impending libel case in which he would certainly represent the newspaper to the best of his considerable and expensive capabilities.

And so he sat in a wine bar over lunch, trying not to look up Susie’s skirt and failing; trying not to remember what she looked like naked with her thighs apart and knees drawn up; trying not to imagine what it would be like to fuck the blonde beauty, and failing dismally.

Susie was wondering whether to let him take her home and do something about the insistent wetness in her knickers, or whether to go home and do it herself. He wasn’t that good-looking, or that nice. But he was a man, and he was there, and she was a girl, and she was feeling wet. Very wet, from sheer pleasure, not fear.

In her handbag was a copy of a publishing contract for a book provisionally entitled, The Kingscombe Wives, by Susie Wills. She could recall the blurb almost word for word. Beneath the outwardly quiet and peaceful tributary of village life - it said - flows all the passion, lust and desire you’d find in a big city, maybe even more so. In a series of frank and open conversations with award winning journalist Susie Wills, the wives, girlfriends, lovers and mistresses of this outwardly respectable and isolated rural community reveal what really goes on behind closed doors.

Of course, they hadn’t agreed to speak to her yet, but they would, she knew they would. If she couldn’t persuade them, she reasoned, no one could. And remembering the soft flesh glowing in the firelight of the vicar’s study, and the rustle of expensive underwear, she felt a delightful warm trickle and let her legs open beneath the table, and then again, just a little bit more, just enough for the solicitor’s searching hand to ease between them and brush the small strip of wet silk aside. He really did have long fingers, Susie thought luxuriously, opening her thighs a little more as she felt the beginnings of a small but exquisite climax.

‘Get the bill,’ she whispered huskily, closing her thighs and trapping his hand for a moment. ‘It’s time to go home.’